


the only prize i'll win (is your heart)

by twinwink



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Very Bad Flirting, humor? i tried, nielwink, rated t bc jihoon won't stop saying "fuck"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 23:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinwink/pseuds/twinwink
Summary: the (unfortunately very attractive) stranger is still grinning at him, so jihoon shoots him another glare that should send him whimpering into a corner.he doesn’t. instead he says, “you suck at this game.”jihoon immediately seethes at that. “you try, then,” he snaps back.“maybe i will,” the stranger says breezily, stepping up to take a coin and inserting it into the slot, “name’s daniel, by the way.”(or: jihoon goes to the arcade with his heart set on winning a prize from the claw machine, and ends up with more than that.)





	the only prize i'll win (is your heart)

“fuck,” jihoon hisses under his breath as he slams his hand down on the “GO” button, knowing that the claw isn’t in the exact right position but he had run out of time and was panicking. “FUCK,” he says again, louder this time, as the claw misses the bunny plushie he had been going for and scoops up nothing but empty air. out of the corner of his eye, he can see some lady shooting him a dirty look and quickly ushering her child away from him. jihoon doesn’t really give a fuck as he reaches for another coin and jams it into the slot, the movement already engrained into his brain from the past twenty minutes he’d spent trying to win a toy from the same claw machine.

so maybe wasting a perfect friday night on a rigged claw machine in an attempt to win some ratty stuffed animal isn’t the best way to deal with a breakup, but jihoon’s already eaten all of his snacks that he had been saving for a binge fest later and he has nothing else to do. so sue him. three packs of spicy ramen, one cup of tteokbokki and a jar of fruit jellies had done nothing to quench the bitterness inside him. 

_ stupid younghoon, _ jihoon thinks, yanking the joy stick furiously and making it zoom right past the toy he had been aiming for,  _ stupid younghoon and his  _ we should see other people _ bullshit. _

jihoon had gotten over the depressed stage of the breakup long ago, maybe after the fourth grape jelly, and all that was left inside of him was rage. he should have dumped younghoon the moment he found out that the asshole was cheating on him—or after the third, fourth, fifth time jihoon caught him with his arm around some girl’s waist—and yet  _ younghoon _ was the one who had the nerve to cut things off first. jihoon is pissed that he didn’t listen to his friends and dump younghoon first and now he desperately wants to go back in time so he can find some very public place to loudly dump his now-ex’s ass.

but now he’s stuck as the one having been dumped, which is why he’s squandering all his life savings in the nearby arcade trying to win a prize from the claw machine, because why the frickity flippity flappity fuck not. the stuffed bunny he’s aiming for isn’t even attractive in the least but jihoon is determined to bring it home with him if it’s the last thing he ever does.

“FUCK,” he curses again when the claw picks up his bunny plushie but drops it at the very last moment. he reaches his hand over to grab another coin from his nearly-empty basket..

“is ‘fuck’ the only thing you know how to say?”

jihoon whips his head around to find the source of the new voice, nearly knocking over his basket in startlement. “fuck off,” he hisses, and then, “no,” in reply to the stranger, whose eyes have crinkled up in a smile of amusement.

jihoon narrows his eyes and gives the boy a subtle once-over. he’s taller than jihoon by a few inches, his frame certainly much bigger, wide shoulders filling out his grey hoodie nicely. he has long legs that are showed off by the black ripped skinny jeans he wears, red converse on his feet and a snapback worn backwards over his perfectly tousled mop of dyed light brown hair. 

in short, he was a complete fuckboy (read: jihoon’s high school wet dream—and maybe still his current one) and jihoon was ready to sock him in the dick for sneaking up behind him like that.

but in contrast to his fuckboy ensemble, his crescent-shaped eyes sparkled with a child’s innocent amusement, bunny teeth peeking out from between his smile, face and overall aura vaguely resembling that of a puppy’s.

_ fuckboy _ , jihoon thinks stubbornly in his mind, because the last thing he needs is to something soft to interrupt his rage-fueled energy.

the (unfortunately very attractive) stranger is still grinning at him, so jihoon sends him another glare that should send him whimpering into a corner. he doesn’t. instead he says, “you suck at this game.”

jihoon immediately seethes at that. “you try, then,” he snaps back.

“maybe i will,” the stranger says breezily, stepping up to take a coin and inserting it into the slot, “name’s daniel, by the way.”

jihoon squints at the stranger—daniel—for a moment, trying to figure out why he would suddenly give out his name like that. “are you trying to pick me up? because that line fucking sucked, definitely would not go home with you.”

daniel barks out a laugh, surprised but not deterred by jihoon’s straightforwardness. “so i have to try harder to get a cutie like you, huh. i’ll note that down.”

“maybe just give up, i’m way out of your league,” jihoon suggests, a smirk spreading on his lips, hoping that daniel will miss the way his cheeks colored at having been called a  _ cutie _ .

daniel shakes his head good-naturedly. “confident, i like that,” he says, throwing a wink at jihoon. jihoon just scoffs and looks away before his cheeks betray how flustered he is, head feeling a bit light from the flirting as his initial dislike of daniel slowly ebbs away.

jihoon’s so distracted by the fluttery feeling in his stomach—all thoughts of younghoon now completely gone from his mind—that it takes him a bit too long to realize that daniel has used up the rest of his coins trying—and failing—to win the bunny plushie. “you know, when you said that i sucked at this game and told me to scoot over, i assumed that you’d at least be better at it,” he says scathingly, scowling at a mildly embarrassed daniel, “are you going to pay me back for those coins or what?”

“um,” daniel says, scratching his head, then seeming to make a decision, “wait here.”

he disappears before jihoon can yell at him and returns a few moments later with something in his hands. “here,” daniel says, shoving it into jihoon’s arms, and it takes him a few moments to realize that it’s the same bunny plushie, only quite a bit larger. 

jihoon blinks, hands clutching onto the soft material, mind blanking as he thinks of what to say. “u-uh. thank you.”

“you’re welcome, jihoon,” daniel says, beaming brightly at him. jihoon lifts his head to offer a shy smile back, until—

“wait.” he narrows his eyes. “how do you know that my name’s jihoon?”

daniel flushes a little, raising his arm to scratch at the back of his head. it must be a nervous tick of his, jihoon thinks. “oh. um. i’ve seen you play games here before. you have the high score on the punching bag game, or at least you did before i beat it yesterday.”

it hits jihoon suddenly. “you work here.”

“yeah,” daniel says with a  _ duh _ look on his face, pointing at the rabbit in jihoon’s arms, “how do you think i got you that?” 

“wait. so have you been, like, stalking me?”

“i  _ work _ here,” daniel says exasperatedly, although the pink stays on his cheeks. “but i mean. well. i think you’re really cute.” he pulls on the sleeves of his hoodie, face now flushed a bright red, and jihoon smirks despite himself. “you always came with another boy though, so i never had the courage to ask you out.”

jihoon snorts. “the asshole broke up with me this morning. i’m single now.”

“oh.” daniel lets that sink in, front teeth worrying his bottom lip for a moment before a smile spreads on his face. “in that case, would you go out on a date with me?”

jihoon squeezes the bunny plushie a little closer to himself, butterflies fluttering in his stomach again. “maybe,” he replies, a twinkle in his eyes now, “depending on whether or not you can beat me in a round of DDR.”

jihoon gestures at the dancing game machine behind them, and daniel’s eyes narrow at him, smile playing on his lips. “game on.”

(jihoon wins because he spends more time at the arcade than he does at his own dorm room, and when daniel begs him for another round, he wins at air hockey and even whack-a-mole, too.)

but he still lets daniel take him on that date, because he may or may not already have a weak spot for the bunny-toothed boy. and when younghoon calls him three months later, begging to work things out again, jihoon happily tells him to fuck off because he already has a boyfriend who loves and adores him in the form of kang daniel. 

(even if that boyfriend is overwhelmingly smug because jihoon can’t beat his punching bag score no matter how hard he tries, but that’s okay, because jihoon can still kick his ass at both DDR  _ and _ whack-a-mole. and in the end, neither of them can ever get a prize out of the claw machine, but that’s okay too.)

_ fin. _

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading! this is my first posted fic so i hope it does nielwink justice :)
> 
> also pls don't scream "fuck" in public arcades or eat more than three packs of ramen in one sitting...jihoon is not a very good example here


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